THE ULTIMATE REALITY
IN WORLD RELIGIONS
comparativereligion.com
Each world religion admits an Ultimate Reality that is eternal and unchanging. But is it the same? If the world religions are only parts of a global and unique spirituality, it should be the same.
There are three fundamental ways in which Ultimate Reality is defined: personal being (a personal and loving God), impersonal being (as origin and target of all personal beings) or an eternal truth or principle that governs the universe. Are these three possibilities mere manifestations of the same Ultimate Reality?
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The Ultimate Reality in Hinduism
Hinduism is not a unitary religion, but a multitude of religious and philosophical trends. Three main patterns can be identified among them. First, there is henotheism, the religion of the ancient Vedas and later Vaishnavism and Shaivism, which states that many gods exist, but one of them is more important than the others. Second, there is pantheism, the perspective brought by the Upanishads and later Vedanta, which considers Ultimate Reality to be an impersonal transcendent being. Third, there are the Samkhya and the Yoga darshana of Patanjali that admit two ultimate realities. Let's briefly describe them following an approximate chronological order.
The Vedic gods
The oldest sacred scriptures of Hinduism are the four Vedas (Rig, Sama, Yajur, and Atharva Veda). They are four collections of hymns (Samhita) describing deities, their works and the praises that must be addressed to them in religious rituals. Each of the four collections of Vedic hymns is associated with three other kinds of Vedic literature - the Brahmanas, the Aranyakas and the Upanishads. Together they represent the most sacred religious literature (Shruti) of Hinduism. (NB: Remember that throughout the content of this website by “Vedas” we mean only the four collections of hymns, and not the whole corpus of Vedic literature.)
The hymns of the oldest Veda, the Rig Veda, are almost all praises addressed to gods. The ancient Aryans worshipped many gods, associated with the elements of nature, among which we can discern at least two important generations. The oldest supreme god, according to the Vedas, seems to be Varuna, the sustainer of creation and guardian of universal order. A hymn in the Atharva Veda proclaims:
This earth belongs to Varuna, the King,
and the heavens, whose ends are far apart.
Both the oceans are the loins of Varuna,
and He is merged within the small water drop.
If one will go away beyond the heavens,
still he cannot escape King Varuna;
His envoys move about here from the heavens,
and, thousand-eyed, they look upon the earth. (Atharva Veda 4,16,3-4)
A second generation of Vedic gods has Indra as the most important representative. He takes over all the functions of Varuna after saving mankind from demon Vritra's influence, the embodiment of the rough aspects of nature. Vritra had locked the waters in the sky, which caused a catastrophic drought on earth. At humans' demand, Indra consumed a large quantity of ritual drink (soma), took the lightning (vajra) shaped by god Tvashtri and, with the help of other gods, killed the demon and brought back the rain on earth (Rig Veda 10,113). That is why he is praised in the hymns:
Adorable Indra, our savior,
Vritra-slayer and furtherer of our highest aims,
May he be our protector from the end,
from the middle, from behind, and from in front.
Lead us to a free world, wise one,
where lie divine luster, sunlight, and security.
Valiant are the arms of thee, the powerful;
we will take to their vast shelter. (Atharva Veda 19,15,1-2)
It is important to notice that although Indra takes over the role of fertility god from Varuna, he fulfills it with much more effort than his predecessor does. Indra depends on the ritual drink soma, and consequently on the sacrifices done by people (which represents a weakness), and has to fight in order to maintain the universal order. His sovereignty over the world is not so striking as it was with Varuna. On the other hand, people appreciate him more than Varuna. They didn't understand Varuna's ways, but can influence Indra through the sacrifices and therefore get the earthly blessings they seek. Once proclaimed sovereign Lord, Indra takes over the title of maker of the universe, which he doesn't create, but rearranges after his conquest.
Two other gods of this generation, with less important roles in the Vedas, but which will play major roles in later theistic Hinduism, are Rudra (forerunner of Shiva) and Vishnu. Rudra has a dual aspect; on the one hand he is monstrous, murderous and savage; on the other hand he is benevolent, divine healer and protector of cowherds. Vishnu, too, has a minor role in the Vedas, being just one of Indra's helpers in his combat against Vritra and in building the universe. At the same time, he is an intermediary between gods and people, a role that will certainly develop in his later special position.
Along with praising the gods, there are passages in the Vedas that suggest another kind of Ultimate Reality of the universe, beyond the gods we mentioned. One of the most important Hindu cosmogonies is that of the golden egg (Hiranyagarbha), an entity that was the source of all existing beings and worlds:
At first was neither Being nor Nonbeing.
There was not air nor yet sky beyond.
What was its wrapping? Where? In whose protection?
Was Water there, unfathomable and deep?
There was no death then, nor yet deathlessness;
Of night or day there was not any sign.
The One breathed without breath, by its own impulse.
Other than that was nothing else at all.
Darkness was there, all wrapped around by darkness,
And all was Water indiscriminate. Then
That which was hidden by the void, that One, emerging,
Stirring, through the power of ardor (tapas), came to be. (Rig Veda 10,129)
There are two important aspects to be noticed here: 1) water produced the One; and 2) the whole process was realized by the power of ardor (tapas). This idea is very important because it opens the way towards the notion of One (the primordial matrix that encapsulates all existence) and also toward asceticism, the cosmic creative energy through which the unmanifested becomes manifested. Another important element here is the preexistence of an impersonal reality (the One) against personal beings. Gods and men are said to have their origin in this primordial impersonal entity.
Considering an impersonal Ultimate Reality above the gods is a pattern that will dominate most Hindu religious elaboration. The cosmogony of the golden egg is continued in the Brahmana texts in a similar fashion as in the Rig Veda, adding the appearance of a Creator (Prajapati) from the golden egg (Shatapatha Br. 11,1,6). The same way as the golden egg appears as a result of ardor, this Prajapati created the world using the power released by his ardor. His words are fulfilled as a result of ardor and the material out of which he builds the universe is his own body.
A similar view is presented in the Purushasukta hymn (Rig Veda 10,90), that can be found in a similar version in the Atharva Veda (19,6) and in the Taittiriya Aranyaka (3,12). According to this hymn, the product of the golden egg is the giant Purusha. By his consuming himself in the fire of creation all of the worlds came into existence, including our physical world, the four-caste system, the animals and the duality of the sexes. There is no doubt that Purusha and Prajapati are equivalent, both being produced out of that impersonal One of the Rig Veda 10,129. This passing from a personal Ultimate Reality (represented by the gods) to an impersonal One is an important feature of early Hinduism that will have major implications for later developments.
The Ultimate Reality according to the Upanishads and Vedanta philosophy
Already in the Brahmana writings (Shatapatha Brahmana 6,1,1) it is stated that the whole universe has its origin in non-existence (asat), meaning that existence must be the product of manifestation of some unmanifested potentialities. This topic is made clear in the Upanishads, which claim that the origin of any manifestation is Brahman, the One of the Vedic hymns:
As the spider moves along the thread, as small sparks come forth from the fire, even so from this Self [Brahman] come forth all breaths, all worlds, all divinities, all beings. (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2,1,20)
According to the Upanishads, the Ultimate Reality is Brahman. It (neuter gender) is at the origin of any physical, moral or spiritual activity (see also Brihadaranyaka Up. 4, 1-2; Chandogya Up. 3,18,1-6; Taittiriya Up. 2,6; 3,1). Paradoxically, Brahman has two aspects: immanent, or manifested, and transcendent, or unmanifested. For a better understanding of this concept, we can compare it to the "Big Bang" theory on the origin of the universe. The point of infinite mass out of which all celestial bodies would have originated, according to the astronomic theory, has its ideological correspondence with the unmanifested Brahman of Hindu cosmogony. However, in the manifestation of Brahman, the product is not only matter, but also living beings, gods, humans and animals. The cause of the manifestation process is Brahman's desire to be multiplied: “Let me become many, let me be born” (Taittiriya Up. 2,6,1). (However, in a pantheistic context, this is a strange and contradictory idea, because the impersonal being cannot have desires. Probably a more accurate term would have been that of necessity of becoming manifested.) After the manifestation is completed, all its products tend to return to the initial state of unmanifestation, evolving from one level of manifestation to another. Then another manifestation will happen:
As from a blazing fire, sparks of like form issue forth by thousands, even so, O beloved, many kinds of beings issue forth from the immutable and they return thither too. (Mundaka Up. 2,1,1)
Similar to the day and night cycle, the transformation of Brahman between the manifested state and the unmanifested one is everlasting (Kaushitaki Up. 3,3).
The philosophical system (darshana) that follows the pantheistic teachings of the Upanishads is called Vedanta. The most important organizers are Badarayana (4th century AD) and Shankara (9th century AD), the one who conferred to it a pure monistic character as Advaita Vedanta - "the Vedanta of pure monism".
Shankara's vision of the relation of the Absolute with the phenomenal world is reflected in an old Hindu parable, that of the rope mistakenly perceived in the dark as a snake. As the coiled rope in the dark is thought to be a snake, the same way the empirical world is mistakenly considered to have a distinct existence, independent to the Absolute, through the illusion (maya) produced by ignorance (avidya). As only the rope exists, not the snake, only Brahman has a real existence (sat) and is the true reality. The phenomenal world is real only if perceived as Brahman, as the "reality" of the snake's existence lays in the substratum that produced the confusion, namely the rope. The plurality of the phenomenal world is an illusion (maya), a veil that has to be put aside in order to perceive Brahman. The universe is not unreal, but has the same value as the snake in the parable - it produces confusion and causes man to pursue a wrong spiritual direction. All that goes beyond this vision of the world is illusion, produced by ignorance.
Shankara tried to settle the relation of the Absolute Brahman (Nirguna Brahman - the One without any definable characteristics) with the origin of the world by proclaiming two distinct points of view: the absolute (paramarthika) and the relative (vyavaharika). In an absolute sense, Brahman is above any duality and external relation; nothing real exists outside him. But from our empirical and relative point of view, Brahman is the cause of the universe we know. In fact there is no real causality; the world is only an illusory sight of Brahman, as with the rope seen as a snake. Brahman's activity in the world and among human beings is nothing but lila, divine play. In conclusion, the Vedanta of Shankara is somehow different from Upanishadic philosophy; the universe is only a phenomenal appearance (vivarta-vada) of Brahman and not his transformation (parinama-vada). From a substantial manifestation, the universe becomes only a dream (or self-forgetting) of Brahman.
The gods of theistic Hinduism
According to the pantheistic view of the Upanishads and Vedanta, the gods are merely inferior manifestations of the supreme impersonal Brahman. However, they continued to play an important role for the average Hindu. The gods that are worshipped today are not the same as in Vedic times. The most important ones became Vishnu and his avatars (especially Rama and Krishna), Shiva and the goddess Kali.
Here is what is said in Vaishnavism about the relation between Brahman and Vishnu:
Just as light is diffused from a fire which is confined to one spot, so is this whole universe the diffused energy of the supreme Brahman. And as light shows a difference, greater or less, according to its nearness or distance from the fire, so is there a variation in the energy of the impersonal Brahman. Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva are his chief energies. The deities are inferior to them; the yakshas, etc. to the deities; men, cattle, wild animals, birds, and reptiles to the yakshas, etc.; and trees and plants are the lowest of all these energies....
Vishnu is the highest and most immediate of all the energies of Brahman, the embodied Brahman, formed of the whole Brahman. On him this entire universe is woven and interwoven: from him is the world, and the world is in him; and he is the whole universe. Vishnu, the Lord, consisting of what is perishable as well as what is imperishable, sustains everything, both Spirit and Matter, in the form of his ornaments and weapons. (Vishnu Purana 1)
Some pantheist thinkers consider that devotion is nothing but an easier path to the same impersonal union with the impersonal Ultimate Reality. According to them, devotion can serve to attain the extinction of personhood, the main source of illusion (maya). As the adored god is nothing but a form of Brahman, the mystical union with him would be, in this case, nothing more than the same impersonal fusion atman-Brahman. However, the theistic Hindu thinkers strongly disagree with this. They see the personal creator God (Vishnu in Vaishnavism or Shiva in Saivism) as having no preceding origin. Consequently, the One of the Rig Veda, Purusha of the Purushasukta, and Brahman of the Upanishads are considered nothing but the supreme personal God (Vishnu or Shiva). He is both the creator and the substance of the world (as a result of creating the world out of himself), the One that both creates and disintegrates the world at will, and the target of all religious rituals and devotion.
The best known piece of literature representative of Hindu theism is the Bhagavad Gita, where the worshipped god is Krishna, the eighth avatar of Vishnu. Although in classic Hinduism Krishna is a manifestation of Vishnu, and Vishnu himself is one of the first manifestations of Brahman (along with Brahma and Shiva), in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna is granted a fundamental theological importance. He claims to be eternal (4,6), “the supreme Lord of all planets and demigods” (5,29) and the source of existence: “I am the source of all spiritual and material worlds. Everything emanates from me” (10,8). He is not only the creator but also the substance of the universe (9,16-19; 8,4; 10,20-42). The cycle of permanent transformation between the manifested state and the unmanifested one is characteristic for Krishna too, as it was with Brahman:
At the end of an era (kalpa) all creatures disintegrate into my nature and at the beginning of another era I manifest them again. Such it is my nature (prakriti) to follow again and again the pattern of the Infinite manifestations and disintegrations. (Bhagavad Gita 9,7-8)
Krishna has to "follow the pattern of the Infinite manifestations and disintegrations", which implies that the process is a necessity that surpasses him. He is just a detached (but also helpless) spectator to it. Therefore it is hard to accept his dominion over creation along with the periodic manifestation of nature (prakriti). Rather, we should conclude that the creation of the world is not an option for him, but a necessity at the end of each cosmic cycle, as was the case with the manifestations of Brahman of the Upanishads. Disagreeing with this, theistic commentators see this "necessity" rather as a divine play in which Krishna creates and disintegrates his creation at will. (For more information on this debate on the character of Krishna see our special file on the philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita.)
The excess of Krishna's superlatives and his identification with the whole existence grants him a personal portrait that is difficult to grasp. A better Hindu theism will be founded later in time by the great theistic Hindu thinkers Ramanuja (1017 - 1137 AD) and Madhva (1238 - 1317 AD). They refused the idea that the Ultimate Reality is the impersonal Brahman, who has no attributes, no initiative and no influence on man. As it is impossible to take Brahman as an object of worship, both thinkers accepted the god Vishnu as Ultimate Reality. He is not limited by karma, time, space or any other factor, and has an infinite number of attributes (unlike Nirguna Brahman), the most important being love, absolute knowledge, and compassion. According to Madhva, Vishnu is said to be totally different from the substance of the world. Neither nature nor the souls of the universe fuse with him to form an impersonal primordial state. He created the world out of a primordial substance (prakriti) and helps it to attain perfection. In fact, creation is periodic and dependent on the karma acquired by souls in previous existences. At the moment of creation, karma works out the fruits of the soul under divine providence. However, that means that the act of creation is still not totally independent, as an act of God’s sovereign will. He is not free to create the world at will, but has to create it in order that souls may work out their karma.
The Ultimate Reality in the Samkhya and Yoga darshanas
Samkhya and Yoga are two of the six Hindu orthodox schools (darshana) developed in the post-Upanishadic period. As most of their metaphysical basis is common, in the absence of any supplementary explanation, what is mentioned here is valid for both schools.
The origin of the Samkhya system is attributed to Kapila (7th century BC), and the real organizer is considered to be Ishvara Krishna (5th century AD). The Yoga system was structured by Patanjali (sometime between 2nd century BC and 3rd century AD), who only systematized the ancient traditions preserved until his time. The writing in which Patanjali formulated the essence of the Yoga system, which represents today the reference writing on this topic, is the Yoga Sutra.
Considering how reality is defined, Samkhya and Yoga are dualistic philosophies, stressing two fundamental notions: purusha (the equivalent of atman) and prakriti (the primordial substance). More will be said about purusha in the next file, where we focus on man's destiny in the two darshanas. Prakriti, the primordial substance, is an impersonal matrix capable of manifestation through transformation. In some way it resembles Brahman through its periodic manifestations. Unlike Brahman, it does not contain the spiritual principle purusha.
As a result of the duality postulated by this system, the material world is the product of the manifestation of prakriti and has real existence (not illusory, as in Vedanta). Its manifestation is a result of the existence of three inner tendencies, called gunas: sattva, rajas and tamas. They are the material which evolves into the categories of existence when one or the other gains a dominating force. Sattva is the tendency that brings light, purity and knowledge; rajas is responsible for activity, energy and dynamism; and tamas opposes action, producing darkness, heaviness and ignorance.
The world and individual beings came into existence as a result of the disturbance of the initial state of equilibrium between the three gunas. Any known form in which we see the world is generated by the participation of a certain proportion of the three gunas. The categories of prakriti's manifestation are, in hierarchical order, as follows:
1) mahat, the first product of manifestation, considered to be a mass of pure energy appeared as a result of the guna sattva domination. Its psychic aspect is the intellect, buddhi.
2) from mahat evolves ahamkara, the principle of individuation (the sense for the "I").
3) after producing ahamkara, the evolutionary process bifurcates. Under the influence of the guna sattva, the psychical evolutes are produced: mind (manas), the five cognitive sense organs (sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell) and the five conative sense organs (speech, movement, prehension, excretion and reproduction). Under the influence of the guna tamas the physical evolutes are produced: the five subtle essences (the essences of color, sound, touch, taste and smell) and the five gross elements, which emerge from the essences (the five fundamental elements in Hindu cosmology - earth, water, air, fire and ether). The guna rajas provides the force required for this evolution.
The majority of the Yoga darshana metaphysics, at it was systematized by Patanjali, comes from Samkhya. It only adds the existence of a divinity, Ishvara. However, this Ishvara is not a personal god, but rather a macro-purusha that was never involved with psycho-mental activity and the law of karma (Yoga Sutra 1,24). We will return to this subject later, in discussing man's possible relation with Ishvara as it is stated in the Yoga darshana.
The Ultimate Reality in Tantrism and Hatha Yoga
As a distinct spiritual trend, Tantrism appeared in the 4th century AD. It is possible that it doesn’t have Vedic origin, because its theology is grounded on two deities that did not belong to the Vedic pantheon: Shiva and the Mother Goddess (Shakti), the goddess of land, fertility and life. The two deities Shiva and Shakti became the fundamental terms in which Tantrism developed a pantheistic view of life, Shiva as the transcendental aspect, the pure existence, and Shakti as the immanent and dynamic aspect, through which the phenomenal manifestation occurs.
Hatha Yoga is also a pantheistic school, which shares the same metaphysic with Tantrism. Its forerunner is considered to be Goraknath (13th century AD). He and his followers used three sources to ground the new doctrine: Tantrism, devotional Saivism and ascetic practices of the so-called siddhas (the perfect ones). Hatha Yoga reached its full development through Svatmarama (15th century AD), the author of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika treatise. Other important writings are the Gheranda-Samhita and the Shiva-Samhita. They all belong equally to Tantrism.
For both Tantrism and Hatha Yoga, the Ultimate Reality of the universe is the god Shiva. Together with his divine consort Shakti, they form a state of primordial unity and unmanifestation that corresponds in the Advaita Vedanta to Brahman Nirguna, the unmanifested Brahman. The world and the human beings came into existence through the dissociation of the primordial unity of Shiva and Shakti. In the Shiva-Samhita 1,92, it is stated:
Out of the combining of the spirit, that is Shiva, with matter, that is Shakti, and by the interaction of one on the another, all creatures were born.
The same manifestation of the Absolute in creation, as stated by the Upanishads, is presented in the Shiva-Samhita 1,52;69-77.
The philosophy and ritual of Tantrism have penetrated most forms of today's Hinduism. It can be found in Buddhism too (where it generated the Vajrayana school), and also in Chinese Taoism, seeming to be a true panasiatiac movement.
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The Ultimate Reality in Buddhism
Buddhism is another important Eastern religion that extended beyond the boundaries of India, shortly after it was proclaimed by its founder, Siddharta Gotama - the Buddha (6th century BC). Two main forms of Buddhism are known today: the conservative branch, represented by the Theravada school, spread mainly in Sri Lanka and southeast Asia, and the liberal branch - Mahayana, spread in China, Tibet, Korea and Japan.
The Theravada school, which claims to have guarded the unaltered message of its founder, teaches that there is neither a personal god, nor a spiritual or material substance that exists by itself as Ultimate Reality. The world as we know it does not have its origin in a primordial being such as Brahman. It exists only as a mental construction shaped by the senses. What we see is only a product of transitory factors of existence, which depend functionally upon each other. The Buddha said:
The world exists because of causal actions, all things are produced by causal actions and all beings are governed and bound by causal actions. They are fixed like the rolling wheel of a cart, fixed by the pin of its axle shaft. (Sutta-Nipata 654)
That gods exist is not rejected, but they are only temporary beings that attained heaven using the same virtues as any human disciple. Gods are not worshipped, do not represent the basis for morality, and are not the givers of happiness. The Ultimate Reality is nothing but a transcendent truth, which governs the universe and human life. The Buddha expressed it in the following words:
There is grief but none suffering,
There is no doer though there is action.
There is quietude but none tranquil.
There is the path but none walks upon the path.
(Majjhima Nikaya 1; Visuddhi Magga 16)
We will analyze these concepts in the document aimed at analyzing man's destiny in Theravada Buddhism. The Buddha was concerned only with finding a way out of suffering. Therefore he refused to speak about things considered to be irrelevant or even hindrances in reaching nirvana, and this included a definition of Ultimate Reality.
The other branch of Buddhism was grounded later, probably in the 1st century AD, and organized by Nagarjuna in the 2nd century AD. Although the texts of Mahayana Buddhism claim to be a recollection of early speeches of the Buddha, they sometimes contradict conservative doctrines of the Theravada school. It is said that the latter texts were revealed many years after the master's death, because at that time there were too few people able to understand them. Mahayana takes a different stand on the person of Siddharta Gotama. According to the traditional view he was a physical being, the founder of the "four noble truths" and the first man that reached nirvana. In Mahayana Buddhism he is considered to be only one of the many humans who attained the state of a boddhisattva, the celestial being that helps other humans to find liberation. |
